About Us

The mission of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior (CEPB) is scientific analysis of the interactions among policy institutions, human behavior, and political decisions in the context of environmental and natural resource conflicts. Through developing and testing theoretical models from social science, CEPB seeks to derive practical lessons that can be used to improve environmental policy. Environmental behavior is influenced by stakeholder beliefs and values, access to information, scientific knowledge, magnitude and causes of the environmental problem, and existing policy institutions. The complexity of how all of these factors interact makes it difficult to determine appropriate policy solutions for different environmental problems. Common features of CEPB studies are the use of multiple theoretical frameworks and scientific methods of data acquisition and quantitative analysis to help unravel these complex issues. We focus on a wide variety of environmental problems and issues, including watershed management, climate change, forest management, marine/coastal systems, biodiversity, and agriculture. Our faculty and students work both domestically and internationally, with recent projects in Brazil, Bhutan, Costa Rica, and India. The CEPB team includes an actively engaged group of Faculty and Masters/Ph.D. students. Graduate students come from diverse backgrounds including "natural and social sciences" and are enrolled through the Graduate Group in Ecology. Recent graduates have gone on to become academics, researchers, or policy analysts in universities and governmental agencies. CEPB is housed in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at UC Davis. CEPB is affiliated with researchers from other academic universities, government agencies, and other U.C. Davis programs and departments.